November 16, 2018

Maggie Haberman’s Talk at Cornell Postponed Due to Shift in Trump’s Schedule

Maggie Haberman, The New York Times Chief White House Correspondent and CNN political analyst, will no longer be speaking at Cornell on Nov. 28 due to a change in President Donald Trump’s travel plans.

Haberman, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist widely recognized for her coverage of Trump, was scheduled to speak at Statler Hall about the current political landscape in an event sponsored by Cornell Hillel on the Wednesday following Thanksgiving Break.

Rabbi Ari Weiss, Cornell Hillel’s advisor, told The Sun that Hillel was notified on Thursday that Haberman would no longer be able to attend on the scheduled date because her job requires her to travel with President Trump.

“My understanding is that President Trump’s travel schedule has changed, and because she is The The New York Times Correspondent covering the White House, she has to travel with the President,” he said.

However, Weiss said that Hillel will be rescheduling the event. Since it’s the end of the semester and Haberman’s availabilities coincide with study week, Hillel decided to postpone for next semester instead of later this semester so that “students are not focusing on finals and are able to attend this wonderful lecture.”

Weiss said he had no further details about what specifically changed about Trump’s travel plans, and Haberman has not responded to The Sun’s request for comment.

Haberman was born in New York City to a Jewish family and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. Her father was also a journalist for The New York Times.

Before coming to The Times, Haberman worked at The New York Post, The New York Daily News and Politico. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for coverage of “Donald Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia,” according to her Times biography.

“We felt that Maggie … has a compelling Jewish story and she does significant and important work and would be able to provide insightful commentary about politics to the Cornell community,” Weiss said about why Hillel chose to invite her.

Haberman was also featured in The Fourth Estate, a documentary about The New York Times by Oscar nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus that was released earlier this year and “chronicles the tenacious men and women in the trenches who are fighting for the freedom of the press and America’s right to know,” according to Showtime.

“In one riveting scene, the cameras film Haberman as the president calls her cell phone, putting on full display the close and complicated relationship the two have with each other — and, more broadly, that Trump has with The New York Times,” a Vanity Fair review states.

“We’re basically trying to anticipate the trend that print newspapers are going away, and we want to try to provide a universal platform for undergraduate Cornell students by having this New York Times online subscription,” said Paul Monaghan ’18, S.A. Appropriations Committee